[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 8, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1668-E1669]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          EARMARK DECLARATION

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE KING

                                of iowa

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 8, 2009

  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican 
Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following 
information regarding earmarks I received as part of H.R. 2997, the 
Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 
Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010.
  Requesting Member: Congressman Steve King
  Bill Number H.R. 2997, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and 
Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
  Account: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation 
Operations
  Amount: $288,000
  Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Iowa Soybean Assn.
  Address of Requesting Entity: 4554 114th St., Urbandale, IA 50322
  Description of Request: The public now demands from crop producers 
both increased production of food, fiber, fuel, and other biobased 
product feedstocks and increased, documented environmental performance 
to conserve soils, sequester carbon, improve water quality, reduce 
greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy efficiency and increase 
wildlife habitat. As independent business persons, farmers in the Upper 
Mississippi River Basin and across the country need management systems 
to help them incorporate the best tools of science and business to 
measure and improve both agronomic and environmental performance while 
sustaining profitability.
  The Iowa Soybean Association's Certified Environmental Management 
Systems for Agriculture (CEMSA) program has developed and piloted the 
basic management system and the technical assistance model producers in 
Iowa, the UMR Basin, and other agricultural regions need to meet these 
21st Century demands. Expanding the scale of CEMSA in FY10, integrating 
individual planning with watershed planning, linking performance 
reporting to NRCS's system, and documenting and providing aggregated 
performance data to the soy biodiesel and corn ethanol industry on 
advances in agriculture's environmental performance and energy 
efficiency have significant implications in transferability of CEMSA 
throughout the UMR Basin and in the future of the farm-belt biofuels 
industry. It benefits farmers by preparing them for participation in 
USDA conservation programs, helping them improve profitability through 
better management, helps them effectively implement and evaluate the 
impact on their business of conservation strategies they hold as top 
priorities, and verifies their success in achieving environmental and 
energy efficiency performance gains.
  CEMSA is also providing national leadership for advancing production 
agriculture's environmental performance. It is one of the ISA programs 
recognized by the National Academy of Sciences National Research 
Council's study on ``Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean 
Water Act'' as exemplary of the performance-based, public-private 
partnership projects that should be expanded throughout the UMR Basin.
  CEMSA's private sector partnership with a public agency (USDA NRCS) 
has a positive impact on the agency's ability to fulfill its mission. 
This multi-year cooperative agreement has facilitated a strong working 
relationship which helps diffuse private sector innovation in the 
local, state, and federal offices and expands agency outreach through 
ISA's multi-level outreach to farmers. This public-private partnership 
designed specifically for ISA's programs enables flexibility the agency 
would not have on its own to create resource-centric planning and 
implementation, rather than program-centric approaches to resources. It 
has created an effective way to deal with institutional barriers that 
often hinder effective program implementation, which can best be done 
by the private sector working with agencies, but is not otherwise 
supported by the market or by program funding.
  Requesting Member: Congressman Steve King
  Bill Number H.R. 2997, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and 
Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
  Account: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation 
Operations
  Amount: $282,000
  Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Hungry Canyons Alliance
  Address of Requesting Entity: 712 S. Hwy 6 & 59, Oakland, IA 51560
  Description of Request: The goals of Hungry Canyons Alliance are: 1) 
To provide financial and technical assistance for streambed 
stabilization projects to the 23 counties of the deep loess region in 
western Iowa, 2) To conduct research in effective methods of streambed 
stabilization, and 3) To provide demonstration of streambed 
stabilization projects for members and for the public. With an 
estimated construction budget of $1,243,900 for FY10, the HCA will 
build approximately 18 grade control structures to prevent streambed 
degradation in western Iowa, protecting $5.27 million in infrastructure 
and property value and preventing 1.2 million tons of sediment from 
erosion.
  Requesting Member: Congressman Steve King
  Bill Number H.R. 2997, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and 
Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
  Account: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Conservation 
Operations
  Amount: $134,000
  Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Iowa Soybean Assn.
  Address of Requesting Entity: 4554 114th St., Urbandale, IA 50322
  Description of Request: The Iowa Soybean Association's Watershed 
Management and Demonstration Program is a continuing project that links 
public and private resources and expertise to provide technical 
assistance to individual farmers, groups of farmers, and other

[[Page E1669]]

stakeholders in Iowa watersheds for the purpose of improving 
agriculture's environmental performance and watershed health. The 
project design employs science-based applied evaluation tools at field, 
farm, and watershed level (such as water monitoring, soil sampling, and 
guided stalk sampling) to collect performance data that can be applied 
in a feedback loop to the planning process. The project supports expert 
staff to assist watershed organizations and groups of farmers in 
developing and maintaining these adaptive management plans and in 
measuring and reporting performance in optimizing fertilizer use 
efficiency, remediating agricultural pollutants, decreasing soil 
erosion, building soil carbon, improving on-farm energy efficiency, 
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing wildlife habitat, and 
maintaining or increasing yield and profitability. Private-public 
partnerships among agencies, private industry, producers, environmental 
groups, all levels of government, water utilities, and the university 
are fundamental to the design of this project, and those functioning 
partnerships to achieve the above project objectives are a measure of 
the project's success. This project also enables farmers to engage in 
watershed leadership and planning, employing their expertise and 
motivating more effective environmental management practices.
  Federal funding will be used to support integration of watershed 
planning and privately funded conservation practices with planning and 
performance reporting conducted by USDA NRCS in Iowa; integration of 
watershed planning with individual producers' conservation planning in 
targeted watersheds in 4-6 additional targeted watersheds; development 
and evaluation of solutions to agricultural non-point source pollution 
targeted to prioritized Iowa watersheds; and integration of data 
collection and reporting focused on soil, atmosphere, and energy 
conservation as indirect attributes of water quality improvement 
efforts in agricultural watersheds. One of the greatest challenges to 
achieving and documenting actual improvements in water quality and 
watershed health where Rapid Watershed Assessment and Watershed 
Planning has taken place and where significant farmer participation in 
conservation planning and implementation is taking place is the lack of 
sustained funding for planning, technical assistance to farmers and 
watersheds, and water monitoring implementations. Previous 
appropriations for this project are helping meet that challenge in at 
least three major agricultural watersheds in Iowa--Raccoon, Boone, and 
Iowa River-Upper. FY10 funding will help continue to meet that 
challenge for the period of time required to achieve and document 
results and to demonstrate a performance-based model for achieving 
agronomic, environmental, and economic goals in farm-belt watersheds. 
The planning and monitoring infrastructure and watershed partnerships 
developed under previous federal funding are in place, and these 
appropriations help ensure the necessary scope and scale of 
implementation and the integration of otherwise discreet programs. The 
work being done in these watersheds, linked to sophisticated water 
monitoring and analysis and other resource monitoring tools, can have a 
significant impact on the ability of farmers and other agricultural 
watershed stakeholders to achieve and document real advances in 
watershed health and water quality, if given time to work. This can 
have significant impacts on the ability of agencies to tailor their 
program incentives, cost share, and delivery systems to be more 
effective in helping groups of producers in watershed achieve success 
in meeting natural resource conservation goals and improving water 
quality. It will also demonstrate effective models for the private 
sector's role in working with agencies to more efficiently and 
effectively meet environmental performance goals.
  Requesting Member: Congressman Steve King
  Bill Number H.R. 2997, the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and 
Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010
  Account: Natural Resources Conservation Service, Watershed/Flood 
Prevention Operations
  Amount: $1,146,000
  Legal Name of Requesting Entity: USDA--Natural Resources Conservation 
Services
  Address of Requesting Entity: 210 Walnut Street, 693 Federal 
Building, Des Moines, IA 50309
  Description of Request: The requested funding will be used to reduce 
flood damage, gully erosion damage, stream channel degradation, and to 
improve water quality within the Little Sioux River Watershed of 
western Iowa. The Little Sioux watershed in western Iowa is an area 
that is intensively farmed due to productive but easily erodible soils. 
This funding will help to provide landowners and communities much-
needed assistance in installing soil and water conservation practices 
to slow water runoff and reduce erosion damage to agricultural land, 
public infrastructure including roads and bridges, and to reduce 
sediment and associated agricultural nutrients and pesticides being 
delivered to streams and rivers.

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